1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the intersection of mobile and the physical world, and specifically, to the use of mobile communication devices to facilitate improved consumer experiences in retail environments.
2. Description of the Related Art
In 1886, John Wanamaker, the inventor of department stores from Philadelphia, is said to have exclaimed “I know that half of my advertising is wasted—I just don't know which half.” So, the problem with a lack of useful offers and targeted ads started in offline retail. In the online shopping world over the past 15 years, search engines and behavioral e-commerce targeting engines have helped to reduce the “50% waste.” In the physical retail world, however, Wannamaker's comment remains apt.
When a consumer watches a commercial for a store on TV, and the next day sees a promotion from the same store in the newspaper, there is no way for the store to know it is the same person. And when that person walks in and out of different stores afterwards, the retailers cannot know that either, and therefore, cannot make offers that matter to that consumer based on the preferences and previous offers they saw. Even when the consumer finally walks into a specific store, the store owners will not be able to tell who the person is until . . . they are paying at the “point-of-sale” (POS) with their credit card or are showing their store loyalty card, i.e. until they are leaving the store, and it is too late to add another item to the shopping basket. In summary, the “sales loop” in the physical retail world is broken. (Prior art methods for providing purchasing incentives have historically taken place at the point of sale or worse yet, after a purchase is made. The current prior art includes examples of methods and processes that target real-time incentive programs (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,786), and even processes that try to influence the consumer at the point-of-sale (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,211).
In order to improve the consumer experience, an improved system would be useful for identifying and/or tracking consumers, and for transmitting advertising and rewards to individual consumers based upon the consumers' interests, activities and locations.